


Even Liars Need The Truth

by bowlofsurreal



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Best Friends, Canon-Typical Violence, Clumsy Love Confessions, Emotional Constipation, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Public Sex, Secret Relationship, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-01
Updated: 2016-11-01
Packaged: 2018-08-28 08:37:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8438782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bowlofsurreal/pseuds/bowlofsurreal
Summary: Partners, best friends and fuck buddies—in that order. Deacon liked the delicate balance of secrets but Charmer always got what she wanted. They didn’t just call her Charmer for shits.





	

They did each other the favor of never calling it a relationship.

Deacon launched himself into the emotional dark matter of it all. The closer their two bodies orbited, the better their forms fit into each other at night, the greater the gravity . . . the more platonic his rhetoric. The glib, ironic flirtation he relied on to diffuse this sort of thing wasn’t a viable path to diversion with Charmer. Brazen thing, it only made her more daring, more lascivious.

He called her “buddy,” rubbed her shaved head “for good luck” with more than an honest, elevated tactile affection; the lingering touch of his hand on her face heading into an op, all “safety’s off” with his hot breath on her neck sneaking around in the dark. Professionally, they worked in beautiful tandem: Charmer in the shadows with a Walther PPK and a cutlass blade while Deacon hung back, covering from behind the Mark 4 scope of his Remington 700. They could go anywhere and do anything, leaving a trail of bodies in silence and secrecy. They were good at that.

For as complicated as it was, it felt inexplicably simple. It always happened the same. Tonight, like every other, they shared a bottle of Bobrov’s Best over something like Charmer’s stories of pre-war American sensibilities (of which she was happy to be free) and Deacon’s truth-flavored lies about his time in the Capital. The two sat next to each other by the campfire, knees brushing, energy buzzing on a lingering touch as they passed the bottle back and forth.

Deacon said something dumb like, “friend, you got something on your lips.”

“What is it?” Charmer asked, knowing what.

And with a smile like a wolf, Deacon grabbed her face between his calloused hands and kissed her. Sweetly at first, but then deeper, more urgent, their teeth and tongues clashing in a war of spit and bit lips. It tasted like grain alcohol and stale cigarettes. Their bodies were tired and sweaty, smelling of dirt and gunpowder, but their skin was hungry, aching to be touched.

The feeling of his body on top of hers made everything feel bright red and full of blood. Deacon pushed her back onto her bedroll, fingers already fumbling with the button on her jeans, shucking them off with a good tug. They fucked in secret, at night by flickering lantern light. Ghostly figures danced in the shadows among them. His hand clasped over her mouth to muffle her moans as he slid into her cunt, rutting his hips against hers deep and slow with just his cock freed from the front of his jeans.

Deacon’s breath was hot in one ear, whispering filthy things about how wet she was for him; the crackling sound of the campfire in the other. She focused on arching the small of her back to meet his increasingly erratic thrusts. She was on the precipice, coiling tighter and clutching the flimsy fabric of his flannel shirt. He fucked her so perfectly, holding her strong thighs apart with his calloused hands. He honestly couldn’t see shit at night with his sunglasses on but he could hear the wet slap of their hips meeting, he could feel her pussy, slick and tight, squeezing him in a vice grip. He swallowed her throaty moans, probing her mouth with his tongue.

Suddenly Deacon stilled, face buried in the curve of her neck, the hinge of his sunglasses digging into her cheek. With his cock still buried to the hilt, Charmer felt desperately full. She squirmed, grinding her hips up, but he was unmovable on top of her. “Shh… s’coming.”

“Oh, yeah, I bet it’s coming,” Charmer joked, hushed into his pompadour wig. And then, a rustling and the deep, humming growl that rose from it.

Charmer pushed hard on Deacon’s chest. She flicked on her pip-boy light and out of the darkness a pack of ferals flocking towards their campfire. “Shit,” she groped for her pistol in the discarded pile of her jeans, “fuck, shit shit!” Dispatching the pack of ferals with just a handful of bullets, the two finally let out a breath. A pile of bodies at their feet, they cast their eyes around the perimeter. The campfire casting patterns that intermingled with the blood splattered across the dirt. They just stared at each other, dumbfounded with their puny hearts beating out of their chests.

She swallowed a giggle but as it resurfaced, it’s contagion spread to Deacon who was bent over, laughing, cock limp between the flaps of his jeans, clutching his hunting rifle in shaking hands. And that only fanned the flames of Charmer’s roaringly, loud guffaws, one pant leg still bunched around her left leg, shirt ripped open to frame her heaving breasts as she gasped for air. “What,” she choked out through the laughter, “the fuck.”

 

* * *

 

The morning sun rose and clean, white light flooded their campsite. Charmer groaned, the equator of her skull split with pain, carved by the prior evening's iniquities. Deacon was still unconscious, sunglasses askew, dry lips parted in some wheezing snore that made Charmer grin.

“Dude, wake up,” she murmured, fumbling out of her bedroll.

Just coming into consciousness, Deacon saw the shadow of her loom from beneath his eyelids as she moved to straddle his hips, her thighs pressed against his sides.Her hands ghosted over the buttons of his flannel shirt. Her fingertips felt the curvature of his neck and the hair on his chest. Deacon’s eyes shot open from underneath his sunglasses.

He took each of Charmer’s wrists in his hands, stilling her ministrations. “Morning,” he said, halting. The sun poured in through the tent opening, illuminating their bodies, the juncture of their union, the sleepily ravenous look on Charmer’s face. “We should…” Deacon said, voice low. His Adam's apple bobbed in his throat. Charmer brought her face close, catching his lips in a gentle kiss.

Deacon cleared his throat. He turned his face to stare at the triangular piece of wasteland framed by the open flap of the canvas tent, avoiding the sweetness of her gesture. Charmer bolted up, a flicker of shame in her dark eyes. She quickly slumped off him and began tugging on her dirty boots.

“Just, you know, not…” Deacon started.

“...out in the daylight,” they finished together.

Deacon’s face remained slack, conveying a neutrality he hoped didn’t belie his buzzing nerves. “Lots of eyes out here, buddy, never know who’s watching. Snipers everywhere.”

Charmer nodded, all business, ignoring his meager excuse. “Got it, D. Let’s just hit the road. Got a drop to pick up.”

“Like there,” he motioned to a building in the distance, “or like, there,” he added, pointing to a crumbling freeway overpass.

Charmer rolled her eyes, shoving Deacon’s shoulder. “Shut up,” she laughed, and that was enough for him.

 

* * *

 

They headed north at a glacial pace; they were almost out of Cambridge when a fog rolled in. They had gotten as far as Beantown Brewery before the rain started pissing down. They decided to hole up for the night in the front office and march on early the next morning.

“So, D...” Charmer floated out, open-ended.

“So yourself,” the low-end whine of a frag mine coming online. Deacon laid it at the front entrance and came back with a cigarette between his lips.

Charmer reached up and snatched the cig away. She took her time lighting it, weighing the hand-rolled tobacco in her hand, cultivating a leisurely drag as she dwelled on her thoughts. She bit the tip of her tongue, “could we, like, talk?"

“Ah,” Deacon pulled his soggy pompadour wig off and wrung it out into a rusty bucket, “the age-old question. Always lightens the mood.”

“Fuck, forget it,” she dismissed it with a wave of her hand. “Whatever, it’s dumb.” The exotic rarity of a wild and wonderful Charmer, bashful and blushed, for him, well, it piqued a certain feeling.

Deacon excepted the adrenaline of a clean emotional getaway but an inexplicable guilt gnawed on. “I didn’t say all that,” he offered.

Charmer paused, offering him back his now half-smoked cigarette. “Are…” she began, then swallowed, “we’re partners, right?”

Deacon smirked, “jeez, C, all work, no play. You ever off the clock?”

Charmer flipped him off and leaned against the desk. “Ha ha ha, this is me laughing. Let’s not forget who thought up this whole bright buddy cop idea.”

Deacon took a couple last puffs and stubbed out the cigarette against the brick wall. “Sounds better in the movies,” he shrugged.

“I know it ain’t like that, this, us, whatever... I tell myself it’s just a chemical reaction, it’s just a good dick that’s got me all head in the clouds and shit—“

“You know how to flatter a guy."

“Just fucking listen, man, for like one second…” Charmer took a deep breath, rubbing the scruff of her head, dark hair buzzed close. She had been avoiding the shiny reflection of his sunglasses, following a crack in the floor across the room and up the grout of the brick wall, cutting sharp across the corner of the crumbling ceiling. “But part of me, I don’t know. You’re my best friend, you piss me the fuck off and you always take all my smokes and eat all my food but,” Charmer cracked a smile, “I like it. I like you."

“Charmer—”

“Call me—"

“Charmer, I’m gonna call you Charmer—”

“I fucking love you, dumb ass,” she finally shouted, like possessed, her eyebrows furrowed.

The air felt suddenly thin to Deacon. Charmer looked at him, poised some perilous spot between hopeful and annoyed; annoyance grown into her emotional roots when it came to Deacon.

In a rare moment of stunned silence, unsure of what to say, Deacon weighed his words carefully before beginning to dole them out. “Look, you got the whole emotional epiphany thing working for you, you make it look really good, I promise, so, don’t take this the wrong way but… you don’t even know me.”

“You’re not nearly as good at hiding as you think you are. I’m not expecting shit but you deserved to know that I don’t want to hide, I’m not fucking scared of shit."

“You’re scared of mirelurk queens and subway toilets,” Deacon said, almost involuntarily. Charmer gave him that scalding look she usually reserved for the battlefield, commanding and stupid serious. A shrug, “just… saying.”

Charmer sighed, all weary still in her rain-drenched clothes. “D, just tell me you don’t love me and we can blame it all on an old can of cram and call it in as a hallucination. We can go back to pretending to hate each other, but I figured, even liars need the truth.”

“I don’t love you,” he said, plain. A corner of Deacon’s mouth twitched, his eyebrows high. The same even, upright candor in his voice. She took a good long pause to dissect the moment, freeze time and analyze every atom.

Finally, a sad smile on her face opened into laughter, “Fuck off, can you be fucking serious for one second?”

Deacon laughed, too, a hollering laugh which peeled back the layers of this caricature of espionage until he was just a man, whose name or age Charmer still didn’t know, but she felt shorter in her orbit, a heat radiating as their twin stars burned closer.


End file.
